States Of The Church

States Of The Church, or Papal States (Ital. Stato della Chiesa, Stato Pontifico, Stato Romano, Stato Ecclesiastico; Fr. Etats de l'Eglise, Pontifical Souverain de Rome, &c.; Ger. Kirchenstaat; in ecclesiastical Latin often Patrimonium Sancti Petri), that portion of central Italy which, previous to the unification of the kingdom, was under the direct government of the see of Rome. The territory stood in 1859 as in the annexed table.

With the exception of Benevento, surrounded by the Neapolitan province of Principato Ulteriore, and the small state of Pontecorvo, enclosed within the Terra di Lavoro, the States of the Church formed a compact territory, bounded on the N.W. by the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, on the N.E. by the Adriatic, on the S.E. by the kingdom of Naples, on the S.W. by the Mediterranean, and on the W. by the grand-duchy of Tuscany and the duchy of Modena. On the Adriatic the coast extended 140 m. from the mouth of the Tronto (Truentus) to the southern mouth of the Po, and on the Tyrrhenian Sea 130 m. from 41° 20' to 42° 22' N. lat.

The divisions shown above were adopted on the 21st of December 1827, the legations being ruled by a cardinal and the delegations by a prelate. Previously the several districts formally recognized were Latium, the Marittima (or sea-board) and Campagna, the patrimony of Saint Peter, the duchy of Castro, the Orvietano, the Sabina, Umbria, the Perugino, the March of Ancona, Romagna, the Bolognese, the Ferrarese, and the duchies of Benevento and of Pontecorvo. The former papal territories are now comprised within the Italian provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, Forli, Ravenna, Pesaro and Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, Ascoli-Piceno, Perugia, Rome and Benevento.

The question of the origin of the territorial jurisdiction of the pope is treated under PAPACY. With the moral and ecclesiastical decay of the papacy in the 9th and 10th centuries much of its territorial authority slipped from its grasp; and by the middle of the I ith century its rule was not recognized beyond Rome and the immediate vicinity. By the treaty of Sutri (February II II) Paschal II. was compelled by the emperor Henry V. to surrender all the possessions and royalties of the Church; but this treaty was soon afterwards repudiated, and by the will of Matilda, countess of Tuscany, the papal see was enabled to lay claim to new territories of great value. By the capitulation of Neuss (1201) the emperor Otto IV. recognized the papal authority over the whole tract from Radicofani in Tuscany to the pass of Ceperano on the Neapolitan frontier - the exarchate of Ravenna, the Pentapolis, the March of Ancona, the bishopric of Spoleto, Matilda's personal estates, and the countship of Brittenoro; but a good deal of the territory thus described remained for centuries an object of ambition only on the part of the popes. The actual annexation of Ravenna, Ancona, Bologna, Ferrara, &c., dates from the 16th century. The States of the Church were of course submerged for a time by the groundswell of the French Revolution, but they appeared again in 1814. In 1849 they received a constitution. On the formation of the kingdom of Italy in 1860 they were reduced to the Comarca of Rome, the legation of Velletri, and the three delegations of Viterbo, Civita Vecchia and Frosinone; and in 1870 they disappeared from the political map of Europe. See ITALY: History.